Big Technology Podcast

Alex Kantrowitz

The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators. Alex Kantrowitz, a Silicon Valley journalist who's interviewed the world's top tech CEOs — from Mark Zuckerberg to Larry Ellison — is the host.

#39 in the Top 100 tech news All time chart

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Top 10 Big Technology Podcast Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Big Technology Podcast episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Big Technology Podcast for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Big Technology Podcast episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Meet The Ex-Google Engineer Who Called Its AI Sentient — With Blake Lemoine

Big Technology Podcast

07/27/22 • 84 min

Blake Lemoine is an ex-senior software engineer at Google who was fired right before he taped this episode of Big Technology Podcast. Lemoine told his superiors at Google that he believed the company’s LaMDA chatbot technology was sentient. Then, after making little headway within Google, he went public. In this wide-ranging interview, Lemoine introduces us to LaMDA, which (or who?) he calls a friend, and explains why his belief in its sentience became too hot for Google to handle.

Washington Post: The Google engineer who thinks the company’s AI has come to life

Big Technology: Google Fires Blake Lemoine, Engineer Who Called Its AI Sentient

2 Listeners

2023 In Review, 2024 Predictions — With Casey Newton

Big Technology Podcast

12/22/23 • 49 min

Casey Newton is the editor of Platformer and co-host of Hard Fork. He joins Big Technology Podcast for our annual look back and forward at the year that was and the year to come. In this episode, we both go through our standout moment from 2023, then make predictions on Gemini, GPT-5, the future of Google Search, Apple’s Vision Pro, X vs. Threads, Falling in love with bots, autonomous driving, and plenty more. Tune in for a fun lively discussion to close out 2023.

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1 Listener

New York Times Sues OpenAI, Apple Watch Ban's Implications, Snapchat Rising On AI Success

Big Technology Podcast

12/29/23 • 48 min

Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) The New York Times' Lawsuit against OpenAI 2) Whether the Times' case stands a chance 3) How the lawsuit will change perceptions of AI 4) How it will also create a strange realignment of the tech culture war 5) Will the New York Times build its own ChatGPT? 6) How much does news really contribute to AI? 7) Who is really at fault when a model generates copyrighted material? 8) Is AI in a trust crisis? 9) Where The Apple Watch ban goes from here 10) Big Tech's year of accountability 11) Is it safe to count on the vision pro 12) Amazon's big advertising move in prime video 13) Snapchat+ is the first successful consumer AI product 14) Year end predictions and thanks!

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Questions? Feedback? Write to: [email protected]

1 Listener

Out At Twitter — With Simon Balmain

Big Technology Podcast

11/04/22 • 35 min

Simon Balmain was laid off by Twitter today. A former Twitter senior community manager, Balmain takes us through the last few weeks at the company, describing the atmosphere, employee reactions to the layoffs, and whether the company can still function after losing this many people. Join us for a tough but balanced look at a historic moment at the company.

1 Listener

Inside Spotify's War With Apple — With Spotify Chief Legal Officer Horacio Gutierrez

Big Technology Podcast

11/17/21 • 61 min

Horacio Gutierrez is Spotify's head of global affairs and chief legal officer. He's a relentless critic of the way Apple treats smaller companies, testifying before the Senate in April that the company is abusing its power and harming competition. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss how Spotify has experienced Apple's behavior, why it's decided to speak up, and whether anything will come of this latest round of antitrust scrutiny for the tech giants.

1 Listener

Hamas vs. Israel Rewrites Social Media Norms, Live At The SBF Trial, OpenAI's New Values

Big Technology Podcast

10/13/23 • 55 min

Reed Albergotti is the tech editor at Semafor. He joins Big Technology Podcast to break down the week's news. We cover: 1) Whether social media is useful during times of crisis. 2) Cancel culture "switcheroo" 3) The value of free speech in conflict 4) Is social media a moderating force after all? 5) Do we actually want news on Threads? 6) NPR leaves Twitter and finds it didn't matter 7) Reflections from the SBF trial 8) Is Apple building a search engine 9) OpenAI puts building human-level intelligence at the top of its value list 10) Wait, did we already reach AGI? 11) The impact of the AI 'pause' letter, six months later.

OpenAI’s Turmoil Rolls On, Apple Under Siege, Bitcoin Hits $70,000

Big Technology Podcast

03/08/24 • 62 min

Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) OpenAI's leadership in flux as Mira Murati named in NYTimes report about Sam Altman's ouster 2) Where's Ilya Sutskever? 3) OpenAI reveals that open source was never so important in Musk lawsuit rebuttal 4) The AI field is wide open now! 5) Anthropic's new bot realized it was being tested 6) Is AI close to sentience? 7) Apple sales drop 24% in China as Huawei surges 8) Apple fined 1.9 billion euro for anti-competitive moves in the music space 9) Apple's reputational risk 10) Apple revokes and reinstates Epic Games' developer license 11) Apple's AI play 12) Could the TikTok ban be for real this time? 13) TikTok's risky political strategy 14) Rise of China in the App Store 15) Temu's strange math 16) Bitcoin hits $70,000

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Perplexity’s CEO on Its Plan to Displace Google Search With AI Answers — With Aravind Srinivas

Big Technology Podcast

02/14/24 • 36 min

Aravind Srinivas is the CEO of Perplexity, an AI-powered search engine that answers queries with a few paragraphs in natural language. Srinivas joins the show to discuss how his company might threaten Google search, and whether conversational AI search is actually similar to traditional search at all. Tune into the second half where we discuss Aravind's perspective on how AI search might help or hurt news publishers. We also discuss Jeff Bezos's investment in Perplexity and where the cutting edge of AI is moving next. Tune in for a candid conversation with the CEO of the hottest AI startup in the world.

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Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice.

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Questions? Feedback? Write to: [email protected]

Apple Fails to Overreact to the AI Revolution — With M.G. Siegler

Big Technology Podcast

06/12/24 • 51 min

M.G. Siegler of Spyglass is back to recap Apple's big AI-themed WWDC event and look ahead to AI's broader potential moving forward. Tune for an in-depth analysis of Apple's new AI features, and what they say about the strengths and limitations of the current AI models. We cover whether the new features will lead to an iPhone upgrade cycle, the stock market's reaction, Elon Musk getting angry about the event, why OpenAI played a smaller role than many anticipated, Apple's potential robotics future, and where Apple stands after the big reveal. Hit play for a timely conversation that goes beyond the hype to examine the real-world implications of Apple's foray into AI.

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Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice.

For weekly updates on the show, sign up for the pod newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/6901970121829801984/

Want a discount for Big Technology on Substack? Here’s 40% off for the first year: https://tinyurl.com/bigtechnology

Questions? Feedback? Write to: [email protected]

Why Marissa Mayer Is Betting Big On Consumer Tech

Big Technology Podcast

04/03/24 • 50 min

Marissa Mayer is the CEO and co-founder of Sunshine, the former CEO of Yahoo, and a longtime Google executive. She joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss why she's betting on consumer tech, building a new array of products including Sunshine Contacts and the newly released Shine, a photo sharing app. Mayer discusses how AI impacts building for consumers today, and whether independent tech stands a chance against big tech. We also discuss the state of OpenAI, Google's competitive position, the lessons from Mayer's Tumblr acquisition, and what motivated her to found a company. Tune in for a fun, in-depth conversation with one of tech's leading executives.

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Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice.

For weekly updates on the show, sign up for the pod newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/6901970121829801984/

Questions? Feedback? Write to: [email protected]

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